When I do play a second time (and this time play the DLC), I definitely intend to check out the alchemy tree this time. I never looked into that tree at all in my first playthrough since combat moves and signs seemed so much more exciting to me, so I think it’s the only game where I completely ignored one tree completely.

I went wolf armor with a focus on swordplay but some dabbling in signs and alchemy as well. It made sense to the fiction in my head. One thing I was bummed to discover was how crazy expensive all the witcher armor sets could get to fully upgrade - ultimately I only got the wolf set to grandmaster, would have liked to have done one or two more, maybe feline and ursine. Oh well.

Just picked this up from EGS with the coupon. Any mods that are essential or should I just go straight in vanilla mode? Need to root out my Witcher 2 save as I’m moved machines a few times since and Witcher 2 was on Steam.

I heard the Anglosaxon translations of the books were bad, so I need to learn Polish or possibly Czech to get the proper version of them?

The translation of the first book to English is a bit stiff at times, but mostly fine. That book was done over to English way back in 2007 or so, and the publisher had no idea if the series would find an audience so not a lot of money was spent on it.

Sales of the first book and the video game series resulted in a full reassessment of that position, and the subsequent translations of the remaining books is better.

I tried playing without using potions or oils too much my first time around…and found that for the first big encounter in Hearts of Stone, I absolutely had to be using oils and potions. So I then went back and started doing more herb collecting and recipe questing, and discovered I’d missed out on a really satisfying and enjoyable element to the game by avoiding that stuff so much.

Well I think the Alchemy tree with a splash into Combat is pretty much the way to go if you are just power-gaming. There isn’t anything more powerful than being able to run 3 decoctions simultaneously or the crazy fact you can hit 100% crit chance and 100% bonus crit damage from a few of the skills at the top tier.

But the game is easy enough on normal to beat it with any build. My second playthrough I went full mage. It definitely wasn’t as easy-breezy as my first run, but it was completely doable and a fun change of pace.

I went back in last night and discovered I had stupidly set the game aside 5 or 6 months ago right at the start of the Iris’s Greatest Fear boss fight. Talk about a crash course in getting reacquainted with the combat mechanics mighty quick.

I thought I had no chance of ever winning against all those guys at once, but then I discovered you can back off and fight them one at a time. Then I discovered parry and quick dodge (I usually just Quen and roll my way through the fights) and after about two dozen tries, I finally won! Got me that violet rose and the doggy and kitty went poof.

The Witcher 3 still holds up. GOATY

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Plus the story in Hearts of Stone gets sooooo good. I mean, it’s probably already good where you’re at in it…but yeah.

It sure is… I just regret how my gaming habits negatively impact the story experience. Shame on me!

Y’all talking about this again has given me the urge to replay, something I said I’d likely never do. Since I had the original game as a freebee with a video card purchase, I upped for the GOTY edition from GOG with the thought to jump back in with a fresh install, trying for a different path and style of play if I can. I’ve forgotten enough that it’d assuredly feel like a new experience.

It was such a huge game I’m afraid I’m going to be drawn away by something else before I finish it, though.

Also, I think they put in an option to insta-level you up so you can jump into the expansion content if that’s what you want to do. So you could play some to get the hang of the controls again and then jump to Hearts of Stone or Blood and Wine.

Well, one of these days I’ll finish the expansion content a second time. I did a playthrough at the beginning of the year and finished the main story and set it down thinking I’d pick up the expansion content next week. But next week is yet to come and it’s been a lot of weeks.

What’s worse is I actually think the expansion content is really great, but I got sucked up into other games and my gaming time is not what it once was. But I don’t regret re-playing the main quest just because I never got around finishing the expansions again. And one of these days I will!